Lab Rat
by TogetherSomewhere
Summary: Regina, A Parisian of 25 years old, eets Emma, an American. What she doesn't know is, is that Emma is her monitor, and that she herself is a clone. What happens when they fall in love and have to run?


_**Hey guys, this is a new thing I suppose. For now it is a oneshot, but I am not opposed to continuing it if there are requests to do so. I hope you all like this as much as the persons that convinced me to post this**_

 _ **Happy Reading**_

 _ **xR.**_

 _ **Lab Rat**_

It shouldn't have happened this way. It really shouldn't have. It was a simple enough assignment. Be her monitor and see what she was up to, pretending to be her lover. Pretending to be her girlfriend while sending the data collected, to Dr. Mercurie. It was supposed to be easy. It really was.

But then… Well then I fell in love with my test subject. Or well, I suppose I just fell for her, like you fall asleep really, first very slowly, and then when you least expect it, all at once. She was an experiment. Something created in a lab and a something that had to be monitored. Something I shouldn't have fallen for, shouldn't have had feelings for in the first place.

But that all apparently didn't matter when those deep enticing brown eyes focussed on mine for the first time. My heart skipping a beat as my breath hitched. Raven coloured locks framed her delicate face. Her plump red lips slightly turned upwards as she laid sight on me.

I had to monitor her, because it was part of my last assignment to become a neuro- and cognitive scientist at the Myriad Institute. You see, about twenty five years ago they had created her, well her and five others that looked exactly like her. They are all clones. Six versions of the same women spread all over Europe.

If I'm correct, one in London, one in Berlin, one in Amsterdam, one Rome, one somewhere in Ukraine, although I'm am really uncertain about that one, and one here in Paris. I was sent to the one in Paris when they found out that there was a slight genetic change in her genes that made her gay. And since they knew I was gay as well, they thought it would be the perfect thing for me to be her monitor. They probably didn't really think that one through if you really think about it now that we're on the run from them, but I will all explain it all in good time.

For now I should start from the moment it all began, me stepping out of my plane, going to my hotel in the centre of the beautiful city of romance, Paris. I should have realised that that was already the moment it went wrong. A romantic city is never a good plan if you want to keep your distance. Anyway, I arrived at my hotel and got one of the biggest suites, it seems the institute wanted me to be as comfortable as possible.

Two days later the real mission started, getting in contact with her. She worked at a university there, working in EvoDevo, if you don't know what that means, it means Evolutionary developmental biology, which in turn means it is a field of biology that compares the developmental processes of different organisms to determine the ancestral relationship between them, and to discover how developmental processes evolved.

I went to the labs there to pretend to study my own field there, which I suppose I was doing, only I wasn't really studying my field now, no I was studying her. Her and her behaviors, since that was what was needed of me. I studied how she would come in always five minutes before she actually had to be there and work at least a whole hour overtime just to finish that last little piece she was working on.

I watched how her face would become incredibly cute as she scrunched it up in confusion when something she was researching didn't go exactly as she planned it was going to go. Or how she would smile so brightly it could light up a whole room, when something did turn out to be exactly as her hypothesis had predicted it would be.

that's where it went wrong for the second time I suppose, but then again, I didn't really pay attention to my heart and it's desires. No I only paid attention to my mind that was currently taking in all that information. Taking in her little mannerisms and how she would go about solving something. She was after all a living experiment.

And I had to monitor her behavior, which included how she would go about all things. How she would solve something differently than a normal human being, and not a lab created person that was made perfect with her created genes and everything. Well she was supposed to be this perfect woman, except that there had apparently been a gene that he been spliced, and thus turned her into a gay woman instead of the perfect female they had meant for her to be.

The first rule of being a clone's monitor meant that you could not develop any feelings for the subject. Any emotional attachment to the subject would ruin any results we would give Dr. Mercurie and that, of course, wouldn't do. They told me they would find out the moment there was any serious attachment to the clone. I still don't get though, why they didn't tell me how incredibly gorgeous they had made her.

Because she really was the perfect woman, through and through, her skin olive toned, lips red and plump, hair raven colored and it looked like it was as soft as silk, even if it was up in a messy bun, black thickly rimmed glasses stood on the bridge of her nose that she would frequently adjust as they slid down the slope of her nose. Her eyesight was something as well, it wasn't perfect, but then again, this was the first time humans have ever been cloned, so a perfect success the first time was something that was left to be desired.

"Bonjour." A sweet, yet deep voice called out to me, and shook me out of my current focus, her. Her eyes looked up at me with mirth, playfulness dancing in her eyes, hiding something I didn't know of yet. Something that I would later find out was a great deal of suffering in her childhood, but I'm getting ahead of myself of course.

"Hey." I said a bit breathlessly, her voice had thrown me off the loop, out of my normal comfort zone where I had more knowledge than she had. Because this was something unexpected. I don't like unexpected, but oh well, with her, I would learn to get over that in time.

"Oh, you're American." She said with wonder and an adorable French accent that sent shivers down my spine. "Je m'appelle Regina, et toi?" She rattled off then and I had to strain my ears to hear what it was she asked, I must admit, my French was much to be desired. I had to search my brain for what it was she wanted to know of me, and in the moment of silence I needed to process a small amused smile appeared on those red lips

"Oh yeah, uhm, I'm Emma, American through and through and really bad at French I'm afraid." I said a bit awkwardly which amused her even more because I could even draw a laugh out of her. It was this perfect bubbly sound that made you feel warm and fuzzy inside, and it made you want to laugh with her and never stop.

God even then I already had it bad I suppose.

But that aside we got acquainted, I learned things I already knew of her, since that was already mentioned in the file I got, and I told her the information I had practiced the night before, a whole made up backstory, with a fake age and everything, all to make me more desirable to her. I needed to get close to her after all. But I suppose she was the one that was drawing me close, making me desire her. Which made me put bits and piece of the truth into my story, in time I would tell her the truth about whom I really was.

Time was the only constant thing in my life back then, because things with Regina never seemed to be constant. She was something in my life that was... That was like a breath of fresh air. Something that has never happened in my life. And I have had many girlfriends already, many times I have been in love, but never has it ever been like this. It was a turbulence that blew through my organized and prepared fake life and made it real.

Time was the only thing that was constant because there were weekly updates I had to give, the only thing assuring me that time was really going by. Assuring me that wasn't some sort of dream, or an illusion.

The weekly updates were almost always made up, and thus the same, with slight variations here and there to make it seem like they were real, because if I gave the real ones that I wrote down, every week, they would take me away from this, tell me I did get emotionally attached to the test subject. And I didn't want to be taken away from the one thing that breathed life into my bones.

I didn't completely forfeit my studies though, I wasn't a scientist for nothing, I studied her like I was supposed to, I studied her behavior, her ways, her way of thinking, her mannerisms, her everything. I wrote everything that was peculiar down, and made sure to note what didn't make her a perfect woman like they had wanted at the begin of this experiment. I wrote down how a different nurture turned her into a different version than the ones in Italy or Germany.

She came to my hotel room one night, in nothing more than an oversized sweater and constellations of tears clinging to her lashes, that made my heart literally ache for her. I wasn't not supposed to let her into my hotel room, since there was far too much compromising information in there.

But I let her in anyways and held her smaller body closely against my taller one, her head was buried in the crook of my neck, her tears wetting my skin, but I didn't care. I didn't talk too, letting her have her time to process what she wanted to tell me. Something I had learned in the seven weeks; was giving her her time to process things. I didn't know what had caused this carefulness about her words and what left her mouth, but it was there and if I didn't give her the time, her temper would explode. That was her defense mechanism, getting angry so she didn't have to burst into tears.

I held her for ten whole minutes before there was a mutter of a word. "Maman." She whispered brokenly. "Mother." Was what she had whispered. I had never heard her talk about anything closely resembling family, it was a subject she always avoided, and now I would find out why. Why her mother had been able to bring her to tears eight years after she had been freed from the woman. How 'father' was a word that was barely able to leave her mouth. Those two words, Mother and Father always caused trouble for her, whether it was just the words being mentioned by someone else, and her having pain swirling deeply in those brown eyes, or her biting her lip had to keep her expressing steeled.

"What is it about your mother, mon chéri?" I asked her then, because at that time, I didn't know yet. I didn't know what had happened to her that made the look in her eyes go from happy to haunted in just a few seconds.

"Je fait un cauchemar." She whispered so quietly I had immense trouble in understanding what she had said, Yes I had been in Paris for weeks now, but my French still wasn't perfect, and her mumbled French words made my mind work in overdrive to translate it as fast as it was capable of doing. 'I had a nightmare.' My mind finally gave me, and my heart plummeted to my stomach. Such a beautiful and seemingly pure soul should never have to suffer from devilish things like that, things that make sure you don't get rest, make sure that you burst into tears, or become a nervous wreck after too many of them.

"Oh Regina," A whispered phrase that rolled into the empty and silent air around us. Even though spoken silently, it still resounded off of the walls and along to space of my hotel room. I led her to my couch that was sat in the middle of the suite's living space. I felt bad for the trembling form that was in my arms. She normally looked proud and strong, even though she was rather short of length, she never looked it. But when she was there in my arms, she looked so small and fragile I could hardly believe it was the same woman.

She melted into my arms, curled her legs underneath her as she rested her head on my chest. Her breathing was still unsteady, like it always is when one cries, but there was no salty liquid leaking from her lashes anymore. Her eyes were closed though, as if she tried to shut out the world. As if she wished that the thing that was happening inside of her head could be gone. Her brow was furrowed when two big brown orbs, that almost shimmered in the little light there was in the room, looked at me.

Her brown eyes looked at mine like they were searching for something, something that would make it clear she could trust me maybe? I still don't know what those eyes were searching for back then, but she must have found it because her mouth opened and she started talking.

She told me things I wouldn't even wish for my worst enemy. I'm not going to tell you everything, because she wouldn't want me to, but I can tell you this. Her mother abused her. In many ways. Physically and mentally. From the day she was adopted by Henry and Cora, she had to learn to live with abuse. Do something wrong and pain would come.

That's all I'm going to say about it, because believe me, you don't want the gory, gruesome details of some of the worst punishments. The large white scars on her back were evidence enough of a horrible tale.

My hand rubbed her back ever so softly, because I had already learnt that sometimes physical contact wasn't the best remedy. It was a good remedy that time though, because she basked in the soft soothing touch as she contemplated on what to say.

"Merci," she started and smiled softly at me. She smiled even though dried up tear tracks were still evident on her beautiful face. I must have looked confused because a soft chuckle left her lips as she explained. "For listening." Her eyes shone with gratitude as she said that with a French accent, that still sounded just as cute as in the beginning.

She and I slept in the couch cuddled together that night, the night after that cuddled together in my overly huge bed. Nothing happened. Just Regina in my arms as she and I slept. She told me much later that this had helped against the night terrors. That it made her feel safe. Back then I did it because of a very selfish reason, I wanted to have her in my arms. Have her close so I knew she was with seemed so blissful those few weeks of being together like that. Until one day she spent the whole day with me when I was supposed to call in for a weekly monitor update. But since I didn't seek contact they called me. Problem was, I was showering and Regina was alone in that room, so she answered the phone...

"What the hell is this?!" She angrily said as she slammed the door of the bathroom open, I wasn't even out of the shower yet. "What the hell is the Myriad institution, and why are they calling you about me." She hissed. Even when angry she never really raised her voice. It just turned into this low threatening tone that made you wish she was screaming at you.

"I can explain, I promise." I said, already desperate for her to believe me. She had huge problems with trusting people, you see. She trusted me there, and I betrayed that trust. Multiple times actually. So I got her anger. I shut the shower off and wrapped a towel around my body so I wasn't need when having an argument and looked at her.

"Spare me your tales. I thought I could trust someone for once. Apparently not." She said in a calm voice. A voice that had my heart in a vice grip just waiting to crush it. Just waiting to crush it to dust.

"Regina please, please let me explain." I asked again and got a hold of her wrist just before she was about to walk out. The grip was rather forceful because she would escape otherwise.

She stiffened in my hold, the grip just a little too hard, bringing back bad memories. "Laisse-moi." She hissed then. It was a sort of whisper that echoed. Not around the room, but in my head. I didn't loosen my grip on her though.

"No. Not if you don't hear me out." I said in a pleading tone and she listened. She listened as a waterfall of words poured out of my mouth all into her ears and mind. A waterfall of information about everything. I explained everything because that was the only way I could have her stay with me. My heart was pounding in my ears as I was laying my whole self bare to her with my story. My eyes were quickly filling with tears as I pleaded to whatever higher power that was out there that she would believe me. Because then and there I realized something. I had fallen in love with the woman I was supposed to monitor. I had fallen in love with a test subject.

"I'm just some sort of lab rat?" She whispered brokenly and looked at me with wide innocent eyes, any anger that was left in there now gone. "I'm an experiment? An experiment with five other versions running around somewhere." She said and furrowed her brows, scrunching her nose as she tried to think. Automatically adjusting the glasses sliding down her nose as her mind raced.

"You. Was it all a, what do you call it... A farce?" She asked me as she searched for the right words to say, sometimes she had a little trouble with English. And then I got why she was so hurt and angry in the first place. She doubted if my love for her was fake. If that had been a way to get closer to her, so I explained again.

"...I love you Amélie." I said at the end of it. We hadn't said those words to each other yet. She was scared of them and I wasn't sure I could say them to someone so frightened by them.

"Tu m'aime?" She asked, the furrow in her brow disappearing and a sparkle growing in her eyes. "You love me?" She asked in English this time. The hope and confusion in her voice made me forget why she was here in my bathroom in the first place. I nodded and pulled her close against my towel clad body that was still very much damp from to shower.

"Je t'aime." She whispered then and my heart leaped when I heard those words come from her. She believed my story. She believed me and she still wanted to stay with me even though we had met and fallen in love during terrible circumstances. My arms held her tighter than ever and I couldn't make myself let go of her small body, joy and relief making it just impossible.

It went bit rocky from there, but that was to be expected. She had issues trusting me sometimes, not that she would say that out loud, but her eyes told me she had trouble believing me sometimes. I didn't blame her, of course I didn't. But seeing the mistrust in those eyes time and time again, made me ache for her complete trust again.

"Tu es un Idiot." She said teasingly when I put down the phone after giving my weekly monitoring report to the institute. She unceremoniously plopped down on the couch next to me and looked at me in a way that told me she wanted to say something, but I didn't want to assume anything.

"Humour me, why am I an idiot again?" I asked and put my arm around her waist, pulling her closer against my own body as I looked down at her with a bright smile. The sparkle in her eyes told me that whatever she was planning on telling me, it wouldn't be bad.

"Because you are lying to an all knowing organisation just for the sake of me. I don't think I'm worth all of the trouble you go through. You have to make up these stupid and incredulous lies, to make us work, to keep me safe. Only an idiot would do that."She would do that sometimes, or actually, she probably did it all the time, but only occasionally would she voice it out loud. Questioning herself. Bringing herself down. It was something she did, that she was used to. I was just glad that I could be there to tell her how special she was. How much she was worth. This time, I did so again.

"You are worth the universe and more to me my love. Just a few seconds with you is worth all the trouble in the world. As long as I can feel your lips pressed against mine at the end of the day, I would do anything for you, don't forget that." I said like I always would, and pressed a soft kiss to her temple. Those kind of conversations would happen a lot those coming weeks, until one day, I saw that sparkle again. That glint in her eyes that was there when she had put her full trust upon me. It was back and I couldn't have been happier. I really couldn't have, that was until she coughed, she coughed and coughed, drawing blood up with it. That was the exact moment my entire world collapsed upon itself. It was the beginning of the end as they say.

There were big drops of blood in her hand, but she didn't even seem surprised they were there, and tried to hide it before I could see them, which made me furrow my brow and confusion filled my head. "What was that, Regina please tell me." I begged softly and brushed a few stray locks of hair behind her ear, while searching her eyes for the truth.

"My lungs, they, uhm, they are... " She began and bit her lip. her eyes cast down as she searched for the correct words to say. "Emma, I'm sick.I have an autoimmune disease that is attacking my lungs" She said and suddenly had tears in her eyes as she looked at me with pain. "I looked for a way to stop it, but I can't I would need a perfect match with someone so I could get their bone marrow, but I can't." She said in a rushed breath before her eyes started leaking tears. The salty water droplets, rolling down her cheeks.

"Oh my god, how long have you known?" I asked softly. I would never forget how she looked at me. The massive amount of guilt and pain swirling in deep brown eyes. I can still remember how much my heart ached at seeing her like that. She didn't want to answer my question that was clear, so I prodded her to answer, and after ten minutes of asking she took a deep trembling sigh.

"I have known for a about a month. I estimate I have about five more months to live. And that is when I'm very, very lucky." She said, and I felt sick. I finally found love, and instead of having the time and peace to bask in it, and to enjoy it, it will be taken away from me. It will be taken away from me. Why?

"It is probably because there is this error in my genes. Because I am a faulty clone, I'm sick." She said with pain in her voice. "There are no medications that will stop me from deteriorating" She whispered and then sighed. "I will be dead in five months. no question about it, I'm so sorry." I couldn't even hear what she was saying after that, for my ears felt like they couldn't work anymore.

At first, the first few weeks she just as well lived with me. Until we had to start running. You see, the Myriad institute finally learned we were a couple, and they didn't like that. Nor did they like the fact that I had been giving them false intel about their experiment, because that caused this particular clone to be a failed one. My Regina was a failed experiment, because of me, and now they wanted us both dead.

So we ran. Or more like I looked for a good new hiding spot, before getting Regina ready, and then we would go there together, and disguise ourselves with scarves, sunglasses, everything that could cover us up, so we wouldn't be recognized. We quickly found out that there were people literally everywhere that were connected to the institute. They would follow us, scream at us to stand still as I half lead, half dragged Regina along. She now had about three and a half months left to live before the disease in her lungs would make her heart stop beating, and her lungs unable to suck in another breath.

"We have to split up and meet each other across the border. Go to Ukraine or something. Go somewhere they aren't at." Regina suddenly said one night when we were watching a film together, in a single room apartment with a scarce mattress on the floor and something that was supposed to resemble a kitchen, and a little TV that surprisingly enough worked good enough to watch 'The Godfather' on. Apparently Regina had a soft spot for those kind of old classics, and I of course didn't mind as long as I had her by my side for the time being.

"What do you mean, split up? that way they could easily catch, and kill you. I don't want that to happen to you. You already have limited time, I don't want it to be cut even shorter." I said. I know it sounds really selfish that way, and it really was selfish, I know that, but yourself in my shoes. She was suggesting that we split up in a city that was infested with people trying to kill us, that didn't sound so appealing when you knew time was already running short. It was selfish and I don't regret saying it, I do regret listening to her at that moment, because that all set the end in motion. You see, when an idea settles itself in your mind, and nestles itself there, it is hard to get it out. It is hard to shove it away, when it suddenly seems to be the only option. When such a thing is repeated enough times in your head, it starts to sound like a good plan

So after another two weeks, and now only three months left on the timer of Regina's life, we set about our plan. We packed two backpacks, put all our necessities in it, and planned the whole thing. How we would switch taxis five times to throw anyone following one of us, then we would take three different busses, before going the last bit with the train, only to meet 3 miles away from the french border, we decided that we would go to spain first, only to fly to Greece together in hope that we would be free there. It was a nice illusion. To think such a thing would actually work. It was a nice hope, fruitless and useless, yes, but it was nice, right?

I left fifteen minutes after Regina. fifteen minutes after her. nine hundred seconds between her departure and mine, had apparently made all the difference. Or maybe she had just been unlucky, always unlucky. Abusive parents, getting terminally ill, finding out you're a faulty clone… Always unlucky. Just like that day it seemed.

We would have met twelve hours after departure on the chosen spot just across the border. It seemed so simple. I got there, happy I made it, and made my way to make it to the spot where we would have met.

She wasn't there. One hour went by, no Regina. Three more hours went by, no Regina. Three days went by, no Regina. A week went by, and I checked there everyday. 24/7, I kept my eyes trained on the spot the love of my life should have appeared.

It has now been a month. I'm still hoping. Looking for my Regina. A beautiful French girl that made my heart skip a beat and my breath hitch. I'm still looking for her, and I won't give up. There are still two months left of Regina's time, so I won't give up.


End file.
